


The Little Town of Golog

by slowdissolve



Category: The Little Town of Golog
Genre: Action, Adventure, F/F, Romance, Wild West
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-12
Updated: 2018-08-12
Packaged: 2019-06-26 01:57:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15653406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slowdissolve/pseuds/slowdissolve
Summary: A loose Seven Samurai riff, written for a couple of tumblr users who were my 300th and 301st followers.





	The Little Town of Golog

“Asami! Hey!” Korra called, and landed lightly on the padded floor of the gym in the Sato mansion. She’d been exercising, doing chin-ups on the bars, and her face was flushed. Asami paused, watching her descend. Korra’s muscled arms were glistening with sweat, and the sleeveless shirt she wore was soaked down the front and back.

Korra approached with her crooked grin, and with a fingertip touched under Asami’s chin, closing the mouth that hung open in amazement.

Asami blushed, her eyes fluttering a moment, but then she parted her lips again and leaned slightly forward, and was rewarded with a soft, warm kiss.

Then she pulled away, turning Korra’s grin into a pout. “Now hang on… I have a letter for you.”

Korra’s eyes rolled, and she sagged with annoyance. “What now? A summons for property damage?”

“Did you break something?” Asami asked, surprised.

“Not recently,” Korra admitted. “But who knows who’s carrying a grudge? It’s been too quiet lately.”

“Positive thinking, my dear.”

Korra shrugged, and accepted the envelope, which had seen some action from wherever it had been sent on its way to Republic City. It was covered with dirty smudges, the corners were dinged and creased, and there were water stains on the paper. Still, the seal was intact.

“There’s no return address on here. And all it says is ‘The Avatar, Republic City.’ I wonder how it even made it here. Look at the postage… that’s the Earth Queen. The postmark.”

Asami inspected the envelope that Korra showed her. “Golog?”

“Never heard of it.”

“Go shower. I’ll go look it up in the atlas,” Asami suggested. Korra kissed her lightly again, and bounded off to the locker room.

When Korra returned, clean, cool and damp, wearing a light robe with a towel slung over her shoulder, she found Asami in the study. The old atlas with its huge pages lay open across a table. She was peering over it, hunting the name.

“Found it yet?”

“I think. Here…” She pointed to a dot in the foothills of the mountains north of Full Moon Bay.

Korra leaned in close. “That’s tiny.”

“Read the letter,” Asami suggested. “I’m curious.”

“Me too.” Korra broke the seal and pulled open the letter. The message was handwritten.

 

 

> _Avatar, please come help us. My little brother Gan has been taken by bandits. They come every year and steal some of our grain and ostrich horses, but this year they took him too. I’m scared. Mama tells me there’s nothing we can do, but I know you can help us. I know we just live in a little town, but please come soon._
> 
> _Erhi_
> 
>  

Asami saw the shock and sadness in Korra’s face as she read this.

“I didn’t even know,” she said.

“Korra, you can’t blame yourself. You can’t be everywhere, all the time. There were big things going on back then… Unalaq. The Red Lotus. We don’t even know when this happened.”

“But we can go see if they need our help now.”

“Korra.”

“I told you, Asami, it’s been too quiet lately. I’ve been here in Republic City relaxing and enjoying myself and forgetting there’s a whole world out there that still needs me.”

“There are more people than ever out there helping, because of you. You changed the world, Korra, for the better. You don’t have to carry the weight of it alone now.”

“But I have to set this right, at least.”

Asami sighed. She knew how Korra was feeling, and if they’d traded places she’d have wanted to do the same.

“Things are going well at Future Industries. I can take a few days. I’ll come with you. We haven’t been out of town in a long while.”

Korra beamed. “You’re the best.”

“No, you’re the best,” Asami teased, and stepped closer, pulling the towel off Korra’s shoulder.

Korra’s eyebrow lifted, and her eyes narrowed, but the smile did not leave her face. “No… you…” she said, her voice lower.

* * *

The trains were up and running smoothly these days, and they wove through the mountains and forests of the Earth Republics, admiring stunning views. A ship bore them across the enormous freshwater sea that was divided by the Serpent’s Pass, and they passed through the narrow channel, marvelling at the thin line of stone that separated it from the eastern lake.

It was as lovely a vacation, though much more peaceful, than either of them had had since their time in the Spirit World. In the Republics, they were still occasionally recognized, but they enjoyed more anonymity than the paparazzi in Republic City allowed.

Finally, they rented a jeep that took them north from the port town, while the trains continued onward east to Ba Sing Se. To their west were mountains, and in front of them a vast distance of gently rolling hills, covered with grass and brush. The roads were good, at first, but the further they traveled, the bumpier they became, and the towns they passed grew smaller and smaller.

A long day’s drive led them at last to a dirt road leading to a village that seemed literally in the middle of nowhere. It was just far enough away from the mountains that their peaks were hidden, and all around them was nothing but steppe. The breeze on the waving grain moved like the ocean, gold in the sunlight, instead of blue.

As the hot sun descended, Korra and Asami stopped in front of what appeared to be a general store. The single, dusty street was lined with a few old trucks, and a herdflock of ostrich horses were tied to a hitching post. Across the street were the electric lights of a tavern. Distantly there was the noise of a generator powering the lights inside, and the three streetlamps beginning to turn on above them.

“The bar or the store?” Korra asked.

“It always seems to be a fight whenever we go into a bar, doesn’t it?” Asami said. “I’m too tired for a battle right now.”

“I could have done _some_ of the driving,” Korra offered, lamely.

“When I get the automatic shifter mechanism perfected, the first Satomobile off the production line will be yours,” Asami laughed. “Until then, just let me handle it.”

Korra grinned and shrugged. Asami was like… the rest of her. She was good at some things, and Asami was good at everything else. “I’ll handle the fighting?”

“Let’s hope that’s not necessary.”

The door of the store was still open, so they entered. A young woman, her chin on her hand, was leaning on the counter by the register, evidently bored. When she saw the two women, she leaned over, looking behind them. Her face was surprised.

Korra and Asami turned too, to see what she was looking for.

“You’re alone?”

“Yes…” Korra started, cautiously.

“No men with you?”

“No need,” Asami said.

The girl’s face was skeptical. She drew back and eyed them. “There’s bandits around here. Not safe for women alone.”

“You’re alone in the store here, aren’t you?” Korra asked.

“My uncle’s in the back.”

Korra decided this was as good a place as any to start asking questions. “Do you know somebody named Erhi?”

After a brief look of shock, the woman’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Why?”

Asami’s eyes pinned her. She gestured to Korra. “This is the Avatar.”

“I’m…” the woman said, her voice trailing off. The astonishment was souring on her face.

“You’re Erhi?” Korra asked.

“You’re too late,” the woman said angrily. “Five years too late. Get out.”

“I just got the…” Korra began.

“Uncle Bao!” she called loudly.

“...letter.”

An older man, grey haired and white at the temples, stepped stiffly through a doorway behind her.

“What is it, Lu?”

“Make these two go away. They’re upsetting me.”

He looked at Korra and Asami, and then back at Lu.

“What did they do?”

“They’re looking for Erhi.”

Uncle Bao seemed to stumble. “How do they know?” he whispered.

“I’m the Avatar,” Korra said, “and I just got your letter last week.”

“Erhi’s gone,” he said, sadly. “Lu is all we have left.”

* * *

Over Lu’s protests, Uncle Bao closed the shop and took Korra and Asami upstairs into the rooms above, where he and Lu lived. He made tea for them.

“We didn’t know she sent you a letter,” Bao said, “but I’m not surprised. Every year when the bandits come, everyone feels so hopeless. Nobody from the Earth Kingdom or the Republics has ever seemed to care about us. Kuvira at least came and took some of those bastards away, but she just made them part of her army, and when she was defeated they just came back, worse than ever. All that’s left of Golog are two hundred and ninety-nine people, just trying to survive.”

“I’m so, so sorry,” Korra said. “I wish I could have stopped her sooner.”

“It doesn’t matter who’s in charge. We always get robbed, every year,” Lu said bitterly. “At least if you’d have come when Erhi wrote you, we wouldn’t have lost her and Gan. I told her it was a waste of time, and I was right.”

“I didn’t get it until now!” Korra protested again.

“Things would be much worse if Kuvira hadn’t been defeated,” Asami said archly. “They would be stealing from you but calling it taxes, or worse. You might not be here at all. Kuvira wiped towns off the map with her spirit cannon. Maybe being such a small town saved you and your uncle, or maybe Korra defeating her did.”

Lu scowled but turned away.

“Look,” Korra said, “I missed a chance then, but that wasn’t my fault. And I can’t fix the past, and I’m really sorry. But I can do something about the future. You expect the bandits to come back again?”

“They always do,” Bao said.

“After the harvest?”

“Yes.”

“Then we’ll stay until they do, and when they do, I will do what Erhi wanted. We’re the three-hundredth and three-hundred-and-first citizens of Golog.”

* * *

 

Lu refused to speak to them any longer, so Bao took them on a short drive past the town to a shack near some trees, just outside the bend of an oxbow river. Night had fallen, but inside the abandoned shack was an oil lamp, so he gave them a second can of kerosene to get through the next few days. He promised to return in the morning to bring some other supplies.

This shack, he told them, was where the bandits established their base each year. When the river sank low enough to cross on an ostrich horse, they’d be back. This year they might have jeeps or motorcycles… that had been happening since Gan had been taken. But if the Avatar were here when they first arrived, she could capture them and deliver them to the Republic authorities in Ba Sing Se, or at least scare them off.

“This stops for good this year,” Korra promised.

“There are bunks over there,” Bao pointed, “but no mattresses. I’ll bring some blankets with me tomorrow. There’s plenty of grass around to stuff them.”

“I call top!” Asami declared. She had a wicked grin.

Korra suppressed a laugh with great difficulty.

“We’ll be fine, Bao. I don’t think we should get too comfortable, at least until we’ve dealt with the bandits.”

Back outside, they watched as he waved from his truck and drove a way, a cloud of dust glowing behind his taillights as they receded into the darkness.

“Well?” Asami asked.

“Here we are. I hope this is going to be okay with you.”

“Why wouldn’t it be? I’m with you. That’s where I always want to be.”

Korra leaned in close to her, putting an arm around her waist.

“Look, Korra!” Asami sighed. “The stars!”

Above them, the velvety blackness was awash with billions of tiny lights.

Korra smiled, and gazed at her love’s upturned face, amazed at the sight.

“City girl,” she laughed low.

“We never see this at home, do we?”

“We’re almost never alone at home, either, except at bedtime.”

Asami lowered her eyes and caught Korra’s. They read each other’s expressions, for just a moment, and came together in a soft, slow kiss.

“We are now. Far from where anyone can hear us,” Asami observed.

Korra’s skin flushed with warmth in the cooling night air, and she pulled Asami close. Fingers brushed Asami’s jacket sleeves, rising, and Korra cupped her lovely face in her hands, studying the smile. Her heart began to pound as Asami’s hands covered hers, and they kissed again, and both their hands moved to hold each other tightly.

_This never gets old,_ she thought.

* * *

The night was as chilly as the day was warm, and the two slept long, until daylight began to heat the air again, and it became uncomfortable to be so close to each other. Korra was sweating hard, victim to her South Pole heritage.

They rose and scouted the area about the river, up the road to see how far out they might be able to see the bandits. They looked for places that would make good cover for an ambush. Korra prepared a mound of stones to earthbend, and the river would be sufficient to supply her with water. Beyond the river flats, the grass was dry in the late summer heat, and a fire might be easily whipped up; Korra assured Asami that she would only use that fire as a last resort.

Bao returned with beans and tea, salt, sugar, rice and flour, and some canned fruit, enough for at least a week. He brought two blankets, and a pot and kettle. They thanked him, but he insisted that they were doing him and the little town of Golog a much greater service.

In the afternoon, when he’d left again, they settled down to wait.

A hazy, cloudless sky was lit by a glaring sun, heat beating down on them. The wind tapered off. There was a porch on the front of the shack, its wood shake shingles bleached to nearly white from exposure, and it provided a little shade. The trees grew behind the shack, close to the water, and some bushes and tall grass with small yellow flowers peeking out. Beyond this, however, were only the hills, baking in the sun.

Insects droned, but that was the only sound. Korra struggled to stay awake in the heat.

“Stakeouts are so boring,” she complained.

“They are until something happens,” Asami replied. “I wish I’d thought to bring a pai sho set. Remember Misty Palms?”

“I didn’t much care for how that stakeout ended.”

“This is different. Something tells me this will be a lot easier.”

“I hope you’re right, but somehow our luck doesn’t seem to run that way.”

Asami laughed ruefully, but nodded.

She took off her jacket and shirt, hung them on a chair, and set the chair under the porch roof. Korra leaned against one of the posts that held it up.

They grew silent, watching the road.

In the distance the heat made the air ripple, so that there appeared to be the ghosts of buffalo elk running near the horizon.

Korra happened to glance down at Asami cross-legged atop the seat of the chair. Her skin was sheathed with perspiration, one hand holding up her hair to cool the back of her neck. Asami’s hair was always beautiful. Everything about her was.

Though they’d been together a while, at first friends, and then realizing that what was between them was deeper, she still marveled at the idea that Asami loved her. Even after all the danger she’d put them in, the way she’d been broken and lost, wandering without telling anyone where she’d gone! Even after all that Asami still loved her.

Her beauty she took in now, with those green eyes, that long, dark, extraordinary hair. Those soft, full lips, those gentle hands, that lean body, so much stronger than it looked! Desire grew in her thinking of the previous night, and so many other nights and times that Asami had let her touch that beauty, with such a deep and sacred trust. When Asami let her get that close, that intimate with her, Korra felt nothing less than wonder. The connection of their physical forms was the beginning of joining their spirits. And here they were, right now… so very close…

Without realizing it, she had been reaching out, and her fingertips came into contact with Asami’s shoulder.

They both jumped at the sensation.

“I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to startle you,” Korra apologized.

“Oh, it’s all right. I was lost in thought. Not paying attention.”

“What were you thinking about?” she asked.

“Automatic transmissions,” Asami answered, still looking down the road.

“Oh.” Korra was strangely disappointed. “Really?”

“Well, yeah, at first,” Asami admitted.

“Huh?”

“Well, I was thinking about the automatic shifter for the Satomobile, because of what we were talking about yesterday. You know. Like how I said you’d have the first off the line?”

“Yeah. So?”

“Then I was thinking about that first time I made you drive mine. Remember?”

“I could never forget it!” Korra laughed.

“You said you’d never had a girlfriend before. You said a girlfriend to hang out with and talk to, but that was around when I first started imagining what it would be like to be your...girlfriend girlfriend.”

Korra’s stomach filled with flutterbugs. Asami continued looking down the dirt road.

“It wasn’t something I tried to do. Just... sometimes, I wanted to kiss you. You’d smile, or show off your muscles, or make me laugh. But it never seemed like the right time. There was always something more important happening. Or someone else was around.”

“Or I was gone for three years.”

“Or you were gone...”

Finally Asami turned back and looked up at Korra.

“Whenever I look at you, like now, I’m amazed that you love me. I can’t even put into words how much I love you.”

“Asami.”

“When you let me…”

“It’s like we’re…”

“One?”

"One."

Korra put her hand fully on Asami’s shoulder, but the sun shone brutally on them, and after a moment, she pulled it away, and wiped it on her shirt.

“It’s really hot out,” Korra apologized.

Suddenly Asami had an idea. “Let’s swim!”

“I didn’t bring a bathing suit?”

She laughed, and Korra’s heart skipped a beat.

“Of course not. I didn’t either.”

“But…”

“Korra, there’s nobody around us for miles. No one to see and no one to hear.”

The Avatar bit her lip. "We aren't supposed to get too comfortable."

“Oh, come on! It’s just you and me… and it’s cool in the water, and way too miserable to keep sitting in the sun up here. Come on!”

Korra relented.

* * *

 

Since it was the end of summer, the mountain snows which had fed the stream all season were mostly spent. They had to sit flat on the riverbed for the water to reach their shoulders. Korra stood up and earthbent some stones to dam up the flow temporarily, so that a pool deepened to a point where they could swim comfortably.

They played, ducking each other and diving into the clear water to pull one another under, they splashed and squirted their hands at each other. Each time they would stop to laugh and kiss. After a time they floated on the surface, drifting but holding hands, resting in the coolness. Not since their trip to the spirit world had they had so much time alone, free from worry.

The afternoon passed, and the light changed to a gold on the leaves. They dried themselves by lying on the grass under the trees. A breeze had started again, and the dappled sunlight moved across their bodies.

“Getting hungry?” Korra asked, and Asami nodded vigorously. Korra rose to get their clothes, but heard the snap of a twig and dived down again, lying flat. She put an arm over Asami.

“You hear that?”

Something was rustling and snuffling. Not far downstream, a large animal wandered the bank, looking for water. Korra had only left a small stream flowing over her temporary dam.

“What is that thing?” Asami asked, mystified.

“A sabre-tooth mooselion,” she answered, astonished, but relieved. She went to fetch their things, keeping an eye on the animal, which examined her carefully. Asami hurriedly put on her undershirt and pants, and then stood by as Korra dressed.

When the beast had approached past the dam, it dipped its head and drank deep from the river, ignoring them.

“Time to give back the river,” she shrugged, and with a few movements, the stones formed themselves into a low bridge. The mooselion lifted its head, sniffed the structure, and trotted across it to the far side.

“Nice!” Asami said. She turned and took a step toward their shelter, but then stopped.

Korra turned to answer, but there was a thump, and she saw Asami’s face in utter shock. An arrow protruded from her right breast, the blood just beginning to flow down.

Time seemed to slow to a crawl. Korra spun around to see a group of people on the far side of the shack, up on the road. They were mounted on ostrich horses, except for one, who was on his feet, a bow in hand.

Without conscious thought, she went into in the Avatar state, and with a sweep of her hands a wind of hurricane force blew the ostrich horses and their riders over, tumbling and sprawling. Completing the circle of her turn, she caught Asami on her knees before she hit the ground, and lifted her and herself in a swirling tornado, high above the treetops.

The people had begun to pick themselves up, but the ostrich horses already leapt on their feet and fled.

She rode the air over the trees and bushes and back to the front of the shelter, landing on her feet and carrying Asami inside, laying her as gently as possible on the bunk they’d shared. She drew water from the kettle and without a word yanked the arrow out of the wound. Asami screamed.

“’Sami, ’Sami… it’s going to be okay.” Korra put water on the wound and applied her healing qi, and it glowed with a bright blue light. The gash closed, and Asami’s tense muscles relaxed.

“I’ll be right back,” she said.

Looking outside, she looked to where she had rolled her attackers. Down the road three of them were hanging back, but the archer was nowhere to be seen.

Into the Avatar state again, she stepped out and surrounded herself with the elements. The air whirled about her in a sphere, and boulders leapt out of the ground, spinning. Fire lit up and twisted in a stream, joining the gyration. As she rose above the earth, water from the river completed the shape around her.

The three on the road began stepping backward, faster, until they turned and ran. One of them shot a burst of flame to the sides, setting the dry grass alight. From her higher vantage point, she could see the archer on the far side of the shelter, and he pointed another arrow at her.

Before it could reach her, it was consumed in a blue fireball, and the archer rolled to the side before he was struck with it. He was on his feet in an instant, running, but Korra pursued him, flinging small pieces of stone like bullets in his wake.

She paused, noting the grass fire spreading on the nearby hills, and the fireball near the shack lit grass there as well. She had to get those put out before Asami was in any more danger.

Water from the swirling mass put the one by the shack out. The Avatar floated forward, in pursuit of the archer as he made his way up the road after his comrades, but he was beginning to be obscured by smoke.

She came down to the ground, and the ball of elemental power dissipated. She drew a deep breath, and raising her hands to the ground, she lowered them again, and the grass fires lessened and died out. The smoke drifted on the breeze, but now the archer and the others were far down the road. Korra hesitated to leave Asami in order to chase them, but realizing that their advantage of surprise was gone, she did not know how else to find the bandits.

No. Asami was too important.

She sprinted back to the shack, and found Asami sitting up on the bunk. She was pale, touching the place where she’d been hit.

Korra went to her, sat next to her, and pulled her close.

“You okay, Asami?”

“I think so. Maybe. I’ve never felt anything like that.”

Korra breathed a small laugh. “You never take a hit. Ever. It’s amazing.”

Asami looked into her eyes. “But you saved me.”

“You’ve saved me, more than once. You save me every day.”

* * *

They ate one of the cans of fruit, and made some tea with the rest of the water in the kettle. Korra made short work of bringing the water to a boil. The flames from her fingertips were still blue with anger.

“The bandits?”

“Gone. I don’t know where. I guess we should get back to Golog and see if we’re too late.”

“It’s a long walk,” Asami sighed.

“Are you up to it? We can wait, or I can carry you.”

“I feel weird. I know the wound is healed, but I’m just so. Shaken up, I guess.”

Korra took Asami’s hand. “Believe me, I know that. It’s so much easier now, with you… with your love. Before, it was hard to shake off, when somebody got to me, but now, I know you’re there to help me get back on my feet.”

“You’ve saved the whole world, but I guess it does feel a little different when you save me personally,” Asami laughed.

“I’ve never had to do it before!”

“Yeah, well, let’s try not to have that again, shall we?” Asami stood. “I think I’m ready now.”

Korra lay back, and pulled Asami down on top of her.

“Maybe in a few minutes,” she said, and with her hand behind Asami’s head, drew her into another kiss. “Or an hour.”

* * *

The walk to Golog took a couple of hours, but they were refreshed from their rest. As they approached the town, they heard the sound of motors revving, and clouds of dust were rising from the street. It was late afternoon.

“That wasn’t hard,” Korra said. “Looks like they’re having some fun.”

“I plan to have some of my own, now,” Asami replied, pulling on her glove. “Payback.”

“You be careful,” Korra warned. “That was scary, seeing you hurt.”

Asami gave Korra a raised eyebrow.

“Okay, okay… but… being the Avatar is kinda my job. It’s an occupational hazard.”

“Doesn’t mean I like seeing you hurt, either.”

“All right, all right. Here, kiss me.”

Asami complied.

“Let’s both be careful,” Korra finished.

The last leg of their walk into Golog was more careful, going off the road and approaching from behind one of the buildings, a corral and stable for the ostrich horses. They could see a gang of people in the street, rolling around on motorcycles and jeeps. They seemed like they were having a good time, and a number of them had brown bottles in their hands.

Asami spotted one not drinking like the rest, with squinting eyes, watching the road. She was relieved they hadn’t been seen. She caught Korra’s attention and pointed at him. Korra gave her a thumbs-up back.

Circling around the buildings to the far side of the town, Asami saw another watchman on duty, but he was less keen on his job than the other, perhaps because they’d been warned which direction to watch. She slipped up behind him, put a hand around his mouth, and pulled him behind the building, where her Equalist glove put him out of consciousness.

Korra was watching and waiting. She saw Asami slip across the street to the far side, and breathed a sigh of relief when no one seemed to notice. She then opened the back gate for the ostrich horses. The gate squeaked, and the watchman came over to investigate. Korra used this opportunity to take him from behind, as Asami had done, and sunk him to his neck in the earth. She bent low and gestured to him to zip his mouth. Eyes wide with terror, he nodded.

Then she crept up to the corner of the last building, and watched the motorcycles race. This lap was headed toward them, so she waited until they were about to turn, and then bent the spokes of one of front wheels. The unlucky rider did a high-side flip and flew forward, crashing into the post. The others roared with laughter.

Suddenly there was an explosion, and one of the jeeps caught fire. Korra grinned widely. Asami was so smart!

This drew out a handful of others from the tavern across from the general store. They all gathered around the flaming hulk, leaving their bikes unattended.

Korra then opened a great crack in the earth down the center of the street, and the motorcycles were swallowed up in it. When the dust settled, the gang of bandits stood looking helplessly at the street, and then at Korra, who simply smiled at them.

“Any of you know what happened to Gan?” she asked.

Two earthbenders hurled boulders at her, and there was a battle cry as the mass of them charged her. She leapt deftly into the air, landing on the heads of two in the second line, and taking them down. From there a ball of wind expanded outward, pushing them away. Out of the corner of her eye, she spied the blue bolt of electricity from Asami’s glove as she picked them off one by one. While Korra had their attention, she was busy taking them out.

The firebender who’d started the grass fire shot blasts of orange toward her, but she ducked and redirected them back at him, sending him diving. Then she pulled the water from the ostrich horse trough in front of the general store and applied it as ice to the street, sending a group of them skidding and falling. The crack of heads against the ice was sickening.

The earthbenders were now closer, and more large rocks were chucked her way. She blasted them into smaller chunks, sending them circling inside a windspout, with which she chased them back a distance.

Asami had vanished, she realized, but had no time to move as a swordsman was careening toward her, sliding on the ice and using the momentum to add to his thrust. She kicked his legs out from under him and pinned his arms to the ground with rock cuffs.

It was time to get these losers taken down, so those who were still standing she sank into the street, much as she had the watchman. The ice on the street she drew back up into a mass, and froze one of the earthbenders into a block. The other dodged the water, but tripped backward on the tongue of a wagon, and was launched heavenward on a stone block Korra brought up. He landed badly.

She was still in a fighting stance, waiting for the next comer, but all she heard was groaning. She saw the faces of frightened townspeople peeking out from their windows and doors. But she knew she wasn’t finished. Asami wasn’t to be seen, nor the archer.

Suddenly the _thwip_ of an arrow past her ear drew her attention upward. There was the archer, shooting from a rooftop. She bolted under the shade of the roof over the boardwalk. It was thin shelter; if she didn’t have her back against the wall, an arrow would pin her foot.

Seconds passed, or minutes. There was no sound but groaning. Finally Korra’s impatience drove her. She surrounded herself with spinning air currents, which ought to blow any arrow away, and stepped out into the street. No arrows arrived.

The archer wasn’t at the rooftop. Wary, she crouched, looking in every direction, high and low. Then there was a ZZZ-AAP! and a thud. She looked up, and there was Asami, waving, holding the bow aloft.

* * *

The bandits were rounded up and several lengths of chain from the general store were fused together around each of their ankles, to keep them from running. The earthbenders were put in wooden stocks instead. The firebender was dunked in the ostrich horse trough, his hands and feet bound under the surface of the water.

Bao radioed the nearest larger town, Xi’an, for police assistance, and they promised that by morning several trucks would be there to transport them to Ba Sing Se for prosecution. It was not only Golog that had suffered their ravages in the past few years. Since they had upgraded from ostrich horses to motorcycles and jeeps, several towns in the foothills had done their best to fend them off, with as little success as Golog.

Lu was unsatisfied. “What about Gan?” she demanded.

“We’ll have to interview them,” Korra said. “They weren’t exactly making conversation with me.”

Out under the three street lamps, Korra stood before the gang.

“Now, as I was saying. Any of you know what happened to Gan?”

No one said anything, but a few of them unconsciously turned toward the archer.

She boosted him up with an earthen assist, and unhooked his chain from the rest of the gang. With a push, she started him walking toward the general store.

Lu looked at him suspiciously, but said nothing.

“Okay buddy. Where’s Gan?”

The archer was silent, looking down and away.

Korra bent and twisted to look him in the face. “Do you know?”

“Of course he does,” Asami said, her arms crossed. She was frowning.

“Is Gan alive?”

Still nothing.

“Do you know about his sister?”

He almost turned back, and caught himself.

“She’s dead now,” Korra pronounced.

“Well, actually, she’s not,” Lu interjected.

“What?”

“She’s gone. Not dead. Just gone.”

The archer spoke. “She is?”

Korra was confused. “What happened?”

“This bastard shot her four years ago, and put an arrow into her chest. Punctured her lung. Bao took her to Xi’an to the hospital there. He had to come back here to help pick up the pieces… again...” she said with a growl, “and when he went back to visit her, she was gone.”

“So she’s not dead…” the archer said in wonder.

“It doesn’t mean you’re getting off the hook,” Korra warned him. “You’re just lucky murder won’t be one of the charges.”

“It was an accident!” he said. “She stepped into the line of fire! I didn’t think she’d come outside!”

“Do you know Erhi?”

Again the archer went silent, and turned his face away.

Asami approached him, holding an arrow from his quiver. She bent close.

“You know what you did to me? That was no accident.”

He strained, as though trying to push his face completely backward.

Asami took the arrow, and put its razor sharp tip against his cheek, pushing him back to face her.

She pulled aside her jacket, exposing the top of her breast.

“See that scar? You did that.”

He looked down, and then back up at her.

She spoke, her voice barely above a whisper, "Those used to be _perfect."_

Asami put two fingers inside his collar, and pulled hard down, tearing his shirt, and leaving his own breast open to view. She put the tip of the arrow against the same spot on him. A trickle of blood seeped from the point.

“Do you know Erhi?” Asami asked, in a clear, hard voice.

“I’m Gan,” he said. “Erhi’s my sister.”

* * *

The ride to Xi’an was bumpy and long, and the weather still very hot, but Korra and Asami were glad to be heading home. Their rented jeep would take them to Xi’an, they’d take the train to Ba Sing Se, and from Ba Sing Se an airship would have them home in hours instead of days.

“What’s the matter, Korra?”

“I’m almost sorry to be leaving.”

“Really?”

“It was beautiful there, wasn’t it? The stars? I hadn’t seen stars like that since I was out alone, those few years ago. But it was so much better with you. It was like seeing them for the first time all over again.”

“And the swimming, and the mooselion… pretty amazing.”

“And the bunk… a little warm, but one of the better features of the place,” Korra grinned but blushed, looking a little sideways at Asami.

“I suppose we could visit again when they take the bandits to trial.”

Korra looked out the window of the truck.

“So now I wonder what happened to Erhi.”

“I guess we could ask around in Xi’an,” Asami shrugged. “But I think she's probably doing better now.”

“It makes me wonder, you know. Did you know the Red Lotus tried to kidnap me as a child?”

“Yes.”

“Would I have become one of them if I had? Gan turned into one of their worst. He’s the one that got them stealing bikes and jeeps, instead of just ostrich horses. Maybe he didn’t kill Erhi, but did he kill others?”

“I don’t know, Korra. All I know is that you didn’t. That isn’t who you are now, and there’s really no point in worrying about it.”

Korra continued looking at the window.

“I don’t think it was meant to happen,” Asami continued. “If it had, would you be here with me right now?”

Korra turned back to her. “I don’t even want to think about that.”

The jeep continued to bounce down the dirt road. Xi’an was visible now, a green oasis among the brown hills.

“We’ll be back,” Asami said.

“How do you know?”

“I figured it out. The automatic gear shifter.”

“You did?”

“Yep, it was that river, the shape of the curve. You made a dam, and you made a bridge. And you move water in circular patterns when you bend. That got me thinking about using water to move the gears. Hydraulic force. It’ll take some experiments, but I think I know how to make it work now.”

“Asami… that’s… that’s unbelievable!” Korra laughed. “You are the smartest person I have ever met!”

“I think Golog would make a great place to build a factory, don’t you? Lots of honest, hardworking people there, who need some industry… but maybe a resort, instead. A nature park, where people can see mooselions. And stars.”

“Or a motorcycle race track,” Korra joked.

“That’s a fabulous idea!” Asami exclaimed. “Industry, adventure, entertainment!”

“Well, if that’s what they want, I suppose so,” Korra said. “There’s certainly enough space out here.”

“There’s this little shack out there… I might invest in a vacation home. Nothing fancy, you know.”

“I do know,” Korra said. “We're like... one."

**Author's Note:**

> A loose Seven Samurai riff, written for a couple of tumblr users who were my 300th and 301st followers.


End file.
